


Middle Child

by WhiteHorse



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bad Parenting, Brotherly Love, Child Abuse, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Kid!Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves Deserves Better, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus centric, Non-Consensual Spanking, Other, Protective Siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2019-11-06 19:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17945684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteHorse/pseuds/WhiteHorse
Summary: Sir Reginald takes extreme measures to access Klaus’ potential.*Could be a trigger for abuse victims, be warned.





	1. Father Knows Best

disclaimer: I don’t own these characters, nor do I have any affiliation with The Umbrella Academy.

 

    “It’s time for your training master Klaus,” Pogo informed the boy whose feet were sticking out from under his bed.

“ ‘kay Pogo,” Klaus replied, putting the lid back on the shoe box and scurrying out from under the draping sheet. He’d found a mouse with it’s leg pinned in a trap the day before and had built a nest for it out of one of his neckties. Klaus had only shown Ben his small pet, he knew better than to let anyone else know or his father might find out about it and take it away. For now it was safe under his bed along with a glittery scarf he’d swiped from Allison’s closet and his father’s missing pocket watch.

    The children were ten years old now and had regular, individual training to master their gifts. Sir Reginald had informed them that soon they would use their gifts to form a team and help people, this sounded quite exciting to Klaus who only wished that he had a different gift, like Luther, who was so strong and never seemed to get hurt. Their Father seemed to actually ‘like’ Luther when all Klaus had ever felt from the man was disdain.

    He admired Diego who never missed a target and was great at darts. Klaus liked to watch him throw his knives while he hid behind a door or tapestry during Diego’s training so that he wouldn’t be seen by their father. Of course, he didn’t particularly want Diego to know either, lord knows his brother didn’t need an even ‘bigger’ ego.

    Five could escape his father’s lectures whenever he wanted to, which was debatably the best skill to have and he always won their games of hide and seek. Ben didn’t really like his gift much either, which was probably why they got along so well, but Klaus was still envious and would have traded places with him if he could. Most of all he wanted Allison’s gift, there were so many things he would do with it, the first would be to tell the monsters to go away and leave him alone. He’d rather be Vanya with no powers at all than be tormented by the dead.

    He feared his training days more than anything. On other days Klaus tried to distract his mind and pretend that the monsters weren’t there, he would talk over them to shut out their voices. His siblings would tease him for talking too much but it did’t stop him from coming uninvited to their rooms and jabbering to them about nothing in particular. On training days, his father wanted him to acknowledge and even interact with the ghouls. Klaus tried, he really did, he wanted to please his father but it was so terrible to see their mangled bodies and listen to their tortured screams.

    “Pay attention Number Four!” Sir Reginald shouted when Klaus covered his eyes. Klaus didn’t want to look at the old woman with broken neck and eyes gouged out, screaming about her husband who’d killed her because she had seen him commit a terrible crime.

    “This cowardice is unacceptable Number Four!” His father’s displeasure penetrated through her screams. Klaus willed himself to drop his hands but one more look was all it took for him to hide behind them again. His training days were always the same, always the terrible screams of the tormented and disfigured dead, drowned out only by his father’s demands and insults. This day seemed different only because instead of sending him to his room after hours of failed training, his father sent him to his study. Klaus was so relieved to end his practice session that it wouldn’t have mattered where he was told to go as long as he could leave.

    It wasn’t until he stepped into the study and had a good look around for things he could pilfer that he began to get nervous. None of them had ever been allowed to enter this room before, it was their father’s sanctuary. Without his father behind the desk, the room felt hollow, like an empty shell and Klaus shivered, wrapping his arms around himself.

    Sir Reginald looked as grim as ever when he walked in and shut the door behind himself. The lecture began as it always had, “Fear is only in your mind Number Four, you must learn to control your mind,” his father recited. Klaus had heard it so many times he nearly rolled his eyes but instead focused on his shoes, one of his socks had fallen down and was starting to bunch up under his foot.

    “Though it seems,” his father said with conviction, “That fear is what controls your mind. So that is what we will use to train you.”

    Klaus looked up, his father had never said anything like that before. Sir Reginald walked to his desk and picked up his walking stick, “You will learn to fear me more than you fear the dead, the fate of the world depends upon it.”

    Klaus gasped and took a step backward as his father came towards him but he couldn’t react as Sir Reginald grabbed his thin arm and brought him to the desk. ‘Lay over the desk Number Four.” His father instructed grimly.

    Klaus could do nothing but gape up at him, suddenly realizing what was going to happen. When he didn’t move, Sir Reginald took hold of Klaus and positioned him with his chest flat to the surface of the desk, it was of a height that Klaus could barely touch the floor with the tips of his toes. Klaus knew that it would hurt and clenched his teeth, closing his eyes tightly when his father raised the stick. When it whistled through the air and struck his backside it was though he’d been struck by lightening! Klaus jumped to his feet and grabbed his bottom with a howl.

    His father looked at him dispassionately and commanded him to resume his position. Klaus _couldn’t,_ he just couldn’t lay back over that desk for another strike. He decided that any cooperation in this situation was ‘not’ a good idea, he turned and ran for the door. Sir Reginald grabbed him by the scruff of his uniform and frog marched him back to the desk.

    “let this be a lesson to you number four, the result of cowardice is suffering, I intend to make you remember this suffering and you will use it to remind yourself of the consequences of your weakness!” He positioned Klaus back over the desk and struck him twice with the heavy stick, in succession.

    When Klaus reached back to shield his backside from more blows, his father gathered his hands and pinned them to his back with one hand and smacked him with the stick twice more.

    “Please,” Klaus begged, gasping at the pain. “Please, dad!”

    “What do you fear more Number Four? The stick or the dead?” Sir Reginald barked before striking him again.

    Klaus couldn’t catch his breath, let alone speak as the blows continued to fall. The pain felt as though he’d sat in hot coals, he was frantic to get away from it but he was no match for his father’s strength.

    Klaus had plenty of experience escaping into his mind, he wanted to escape more than anything at that moment, but the pain held him fast and he couldn’t. Tears streamed down his face and he tried to speak but all that came out was a shriek as he drummed his toes on the ground with each whack. Klaus thought that it would never stop. The blows just continued to fall until he lost the will to fight and went limp, whimpering in agony.

    It took some time for Klaus to realize when the beating had stopped, his father had released his hands but he felt glued to the desktop for several minutes trying to catch his breath.

    “You are dismissed Number Four, keep in mind what we have discussed here for your next training session.” Sir Reginald said stoically, “This lesson will be repeated as necessary.”

    Klaus stood up with a wince and wiped his eyes before he fled the study limping away for the solitude of his room.

   He bumped into Diego in the hallway, his eyes blinded by tears and landed on his backside with a yelp. Diego was about to holler at him for being careless but stopped when he saw Klaus’ tear streaked face, “Klaus?” Diego whispered, helping his brother stand up. As soon as he was back on his feet, Klaus ran into his room and slammed the door shut.

    Diego stared at the door, Klaus rarely closed his door, out of all of his siblings he was literally and figuratively the most open, so Diego knew that something must be very wrong. Diego hesitated in front of Klaus’ door before he knocked softly. “Klaus, you okay?” He asked the door.

    When Diego didn’t hear anything but sobbing on the other side, he wasn’t sure what to do. He considered going to look for Ben, he and Klaus were always together, practically living in each other’s rooms.

    Diego wasn’t comfortable with tears, but this was Four, who could annoy him like no one else but was also the only sibling who hadn’t taken the opportunity to make fun of his stutter despite times when Diego had been particularly mean to him. He’d never heard Klaus cry so much, even when Luther had thrown him into a wall for emptying a jar full of spiders in his bed.

    “Klaus, I’m coming in!” Diego said, deciding that he couldn’t just walk away.

    Klaus was laying on his belly across his bed with his face buried in his hands. Diego reached to touch his shoulder and Klaus violently jerked away when he made contact.

    “Hey. . .hey Klaus, it’s just me.” Diego said softly, sitting down on the bed beside him.

    Klaus had always been incredibly skinny and had yet to hit the growth spirt that the other boys had, mother had said he was a ‘late bloomer’, whatever that meant. Diego thought that he looked awfully small laying there mewling, he’d never noticed before because Klaus had such a big mouth that it more than made up for his slight stature.

    “Tell me what happened.” Diego demanded, suddenly feeling intensely protective.

    “I . . . h. .. hate him!” Klaus choked out, uncovering his face to clench his fists, but kept his eyes closed tight.

   “I’ll kill him!” Diego erupted with all of the determination and indignation he could muster within his ten year old body, “Who is he?!”

    Klaus sniffled, his backside throbbed so badly, he was worried that it might never stop and could only cry more at the thought.

    “Was it Luther? I’ll kill him! He thinks he can do anything all because father happened to stop in Scandinavia before Spain!” Diego ranted, always feeling bitter about being Number Two.

    “No, it was father!” Klaus replied, quick to defend Number One from another fight with Diego.

    “Oh,” Diego cringed in sympathy, “ Yeah dad’s a real jerk, just last week I missed a target and he made me practice the same target for four hours!” He grumbled. “‘It’ll be okay, Klaus.”

    Diego gave him a pat and Klaus yelped like a puppy who’s tail had been stepped on. Diego’s stomach filled with heat, “What’s wrong?” He asked feeling his heart clench as he realized that his brother was in physical pain.

    “He hurt me, it hurts so much,” Klaus gasped. “‘Why won’t it stop hurting?”

    Diego swallowed thickly, pushing the back of his brother’s shirt up revealing a deep red and purpling line across his lower back and escaping under the waistband of his trousers. Diego couldn’t speak at first, with all of the horrific things their father had done to all of them at least they had never ‘hit’ them. Until now.

    “Oh Klaus,” Diego breathed out and stroked the back of his brothers head. He didn’t know what he could do, he was angry at their father, so angry, but part of him was afraid that it might happen to him as well and he felt so helpless to fix this for Klaus.“‘Why did he do this to you?”

   Klaus continued to sniffle and wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve. “B’cause l am a coward. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” He wept.

    “‘I’ll get him for this,” Diego grit out, determined to protect his brother. “Some how, some way, he’ll pay Klaus!”

    Klaus wasn’t listening, he was so exhausted, all of the crying and the pain had sapped him of his strength and he couldn’t stop the yawn that split his face.

    “I’m going to get mother.” Diego said standing up.

    “Don’t go Diego, please, stay,” Klaus begged, reaching out for comfort and grasped his brothers hand.

    Diego felt important, special even, that his brother needed him, that he was Number One to Klaus at that moment and he sat back down and held Klaus’ hand as he fell asleep.

    When Klaus’ hand went limp in his own, Diego stretched out beside him on the bed putting a protective arm around his sleeping form and tried to think of a something, anything he could do.


	2. Never coming back

Klaus hadn’t been asleep long when he started moaning softly, distracting Diego from his thoughts. Diego pet Klaus’ arm awkwardly, trying to soothe his brother but it only seemed to disturb him more as he shivered and let out a scared whimper. Diego was used to Klaus’ carefree and silly nature, he didn’t recognize ‘this’ Klaus who was so broken and seemed so small. It made him feel sick to his stomach.

 

“Klaus! Klaus, w..w.wake up,” Diego stuttered, shaking his brother’s shoulder.

 

Klaus woke up with a jolt and sat up, immediately rolling onto his side and holding his backside with a pained cry.

 

‘“I’ve got to get mother,” Diego said as he got up, “she can make it better.” Diego had the utmost faith in her ability to fix things since she had always made things better when he was upset.

 

Klaus bit his Lower lip and nodded his head, he really wanted his mother just then. “‘Just, just mother. No one else, ‘kay?” Klaus begged, “Don’t let anyone else know . . .please Diego?”

 

Klaus relaxed his shoulders a bit when Diego nodded his head and didn’t say anything in reply before he left the room.

 

Diego found their mother in an alcove where the most beautiful paintings in Reginald’s vast collection decorated the walls, she sat on a tufted bench, stitching a breast button onto a uniform jacket.

 

“Oh hello Diego dear, you seem upset, whatever is the matter?” She asked, resting the blazer in her lap and looking up at him with a placid smile and her head tilted to the side in question.

 

“Klaus is hurt mom, you’ve got to come help him,” Diego whispered urgently, looking around to make sure that he wasn’t attracting unwanted attention from his siblings or their father.

 

“What’s happened Diego? I hope you boys haven’t been running around in the back garden again, at least not until the construction is finished,” She chastised gently as she stood up and followed Diego to Klaus’ room. Klaus and Diego in particular seemed to love going where they’d been told not to. It was one thing they shared.

 

“No, just, you gotta come,” Diego insisted pulling her into Klaus’ bedroom by her hand and shutting the door behind them and nodding his head towards Klaus.

 

Their mother came towards the bed and cupped her hand against Klaus’ tear stained cheek. “My little monkey,” she frowned, “what’s wrong dearest?”

 

Before Klaus could respond, Diego stomped over and lifted the back of Klaus’ shirt and pointing angrily at the dark stripe across Klaus’ lower back, “Dad hit him!” He shouted accusingly.

 

She seemed to ignore the implication the their father had done something wrong and focused on taking care of her boy.

 

“Oh Klaus, mother will make it better.” She said caressing his face. “Now, you just wait a moment and I’ll be right back with something to make you feel better,” She tapped his nose with an elegant finger.

 

When she left, Diego sat down on the bed not knowing what he should do, hetried to think of something to say or do while Klaus just rubbed at his itchy eyes.

 

“Just wait until we tell the others, this will really shut Luther up about how ‘great’ dad is,” Diego grumbled.

 

“No!” Klaus suddenly shouted in alarm, “No, you can’t tell them, please Diego don’t!”

 

“What?! Why not?” Diego asked, startled.

 

“I don’t want them to know! I don’t want anyone to know!” Klaus implored, a blush spreads across his cheeks. “‘I’d be so humiliated.” He added with a whisper. “They’d look at me differently. . .”

 

“Klaus, come on, no they wouldn’t, b b bbesides, they should know. . .” Diego stuttered, trying to rationalize with his brother.

 

“NO! Please, I can’t have everyone know! Promise me, please Diego!” Klaus begged.

 

Diego looked at Klaus’ frightened face and couldn’t refuse.

 

“What about Ben? I thought you told him everything, even where you put my Swiss pocket knife.” Diego added with narrowed eyes.

 

“No. He . . .he would, think I’m, I just don’t want him to know okay!” Klaus valued Ben’s opinion of him over all others, he didn’t want Ben to pity him or think he was weak, he felt that it would destroy Ben’s admiration of him. “You don’t have to stay Diego, just promise me please?”

 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Diego replied stubbornly crossing his arms over his chest.

 

Their mother came back through the door, hands full of things that Klaus hoped would lessen the lines of hurt that still throbbed with every beat of his heart. A deep ache had replaced the searing pain across his backside.

 

Their Mother’s gentle hands lowered his trousers and pants. Klaus, who had never been the least bit modest, often running around in nothing but his underpants, or traversing a path from the bathroom to his bedroom completely nude, despite the protests of his siblings, felt truly naked for the first

time in his life and buried his face into the bedsheets.

 

Diego gasped at the bruising stripes that covered his brother from the base of his back to his upper thighs. It looked so painful. He took hold of Klaus’ hand unconsciously when their mother began to paint a white cream over the battered skin.

 

“Poor little monkey, you must be more careful.” Their mother hummed as she treated his bruises. “There now, does that feel a bit better?”

 

“‘Careful?! Mom, dad did this to him!” Diego sputtered with outrage.

 

“Your father just wants what is best for you,” she replied with her pasted on smile. “He’s a good man.”

 

“Mom! You think that this is ‘best’ for Klaus?!” Diego held his open palm out to Klaus’ welts.

 

“Don’t shout at mom,” Klaus pled, exhausted.

 

Diego huffed and held Klaus’ hand tighter and winced, imagining their father doing the same thing to him. He swallowed thickly, feeling fear replace thebundle of angry feelings he normally had for their father. He worried that now father would do it to the rest of them when they failed in their training. Diego didn’t think he could stand it.

 

Perhaps that was why his father had done this to Klaus. Father simply would never do it to Luther because he was the favorite and if he had done it, Luther could throw their father across the room with his strength. Diego figured that he would have used his knives to protect himself from such an assault. Ben was too meek to ever disobey or contradict their father in any way. Five would escape to another place in the blink of an eye and the girls would have screamed the house down or rumored him to stop before he had started. It left Klaus as the only one vulnerable enough to be in such a position and the thought made Diego all the more furious.

 

When their mother finished painting his welts with cream, she covered him back up and Klaus turned to look at her closely. He wished so much that she were his real mother as she sat next to him and stroked his back, softly humming to him. It was like a balm for Klaus’ broken heart but when he looked into her eyes, they were empty. As much as he wanted to pretend she was his real mother, she was just a machine, programmed by their father, devoid of any honest emotions, who could not truly love him. His eyes burned with fresh tears at the thought.

 

Klaus pulled away from her touch and reached for Diego instead.

 

Diego was surprised and hesitated only a moment before wrapping his arms around his brother.

 

Diego wasn’t used to anyone going to him for comfort, he found that he rather liked it, it made him feel important and strong, a protector. That was what he’d always wanted to be, so he held Klaus tighter to his chest.

 

“‘Well you two,” their mother said pleasantly as she stood up, “you should get washed up for dinner. Tonight we’ll be having salmon with roast potatoes and asparagus.” She smoothed her skirt, heals clicking on the hardwood floor as she left the room.

 

Klaus panicked, he would have to sit in one of those awful wooden chairs and even worse was that his father would be there. Klaus’ heart clenched in fear. He didn’t know if he could bear to look at their father after he’d hurt him so mercilessly and he was mortified by the idea that his other siblings would find out all at once in such a public way.

 

“I can’t! I can’t go to dinner,” Klaus worriedly said. “please Diego just tell them I’m sick!”

 

“O. .ohKay Klaus, relax, I w w will” Diego stuttered. Trying to ease the terror he saw in his brother’s face. “‘I’ll bring you something from dinner.” He promised.

 

Diego was reluctant to leave his brother in such a state but he knew that if he was late to dinner it would raise suspicion since he was usually the first to the table followed quickly by Luther.

 

He squeezed Klaus shoulder and gave him a tight smile before he left.

 

By the time Diego made it to the dinner table, everyone else was already there leaving only Klaus’ spot around the table empty, it was more uncomfortable than Diego would have thought to announce that Four wasn’t feeling well enough to join them. He couldn’t even glance at their father when he said it and everyone else looked at him curiously.

 

Their Father didn’t address Klaus’ absence, only barking his usual order to ‘sit’. All chairs but one scraping along the hardwood floors. When Diego looked up from his plate he could feel Ben’s eyes on him, everyone else was blissfully ignoring each other and eating, other than Ben who was practically glaring at him.

 

‘What?’ Diego mouthed after he swallowed a mouthful of potato.

 

Ben simply narrowed his eyes in response.

 

Diego shrugged and returned to his dark thoughts of capturing their father and using him for target practice.

 

It wasn’t until they’d left the table and headed for their rooms that the usually passive Ben, shoulder checked Diego on their way up the stairs.

 

“What did you do to Klaus?” Ben asked accusingly when Diego stopped to face him. “He wasn’t sick at lunch and why would ‘you’ know something about Klaus that ‘I’ don’t? He’s ‘my’ partner.”

 

Diego should have known that Ben would react this way, there were few things that Ben liked more than sharing secrets with Klaus and he was very protective of his position as Klaus’ confidant and academy partner.

 

Diego bit his lip, not knowing what he should say at first. “yeah, well . . . I just caught him, p ppuking in the toilet before dinner.” He tried to shrug Ben off, he wanted to go back and check on Klaus and bring him the bread rolls he’d stuffed into the toes of his shoes but he realized that it would look strange to Ben if he did that, Klaus had trusted him to keep his secret, so instead he went to his own room down the hall.

 

Ben was surprised to run into a closed door when he got to Klaus’ room. He didn’t knock, because he never did and burst into the room.

 

Klaus was on his side hugging his knees, making himself as small as possible on the bed and barely looked up at him when he entered.

 

“‘You’re sick?” Ben asked, rushing over to sit on the end of the bed.

 

‘Mmm hmm” Klaus mumbled into his knees.

 

“‘you got a fever?” Ben asked, reaching out to put a hand on Klaus’ forehead.

 

Klaus cringed away.

 

Ben furrowed his brow, “Jeez, I told you not to get that mouse yesterday. We read in class that that’s how people used to get the plague . . .you know, from rodents.” He said scrunching his nose.

 

Klaus didn’t even look up.

 

“Is it still alive?” Ben asked getting on his knees and crawling under the bed to look. “Hey! Is this my lucky marble? I thought I lost this!” He called up indignantly from below.

 

When he didn’t get a response, Ben backed out and looked up at Klaus who was lost in his own world. Ben had been around his brother when he’d been sick about a dozen times and Klaus’d never behaved like this. Usually he’d be extra giggly, when he was high on a fever or groaning and begging Ben entertain him whenever he wasn’t.

 

Ben sat back on his heals. “You’re being really weird.” He said.

 

“Sorry,” Klaus mumbled.

 

“S’okay,” Ben sat back down on the bed. “what’s wrong?”

 

“I just, I want to be alone.” Klaus told him, resting his chin on his knees.

 

Ben couldn’t understand. Klaus ‘never’ wanted to be alone, not ever. Half of his lifetime he’d woken up in the middle of the night about to tip off of his own mattress because Klaus had snuck in and filled his bed with his scrawny, flailing limbs. The other half of the time he woke up in Klaus’ room wrapped tightly in his brother’s boa constrictor arms, after he’d been begged and bribed to ‘stay over’.

 

Klaus had never understood the concept of ‘personal space’ and Ben didn’t really mind because, well, because Klaus was his best friend.

 

“Are you mad at me?” Ben asked quietly, putting a hand on one of Klaus’ bare feet imploringly.

 

Klaus couldn’t take the hurt in Ben’s voice and immediately crumbled. ‘’No Benny, never mad at you,” Klaus said finally facing his brother.

 

“I know something’s wrong, why won’t you tell me?” Ben asked so sincerely that as much as Klaus wanted to protect what pride he had left, he just couldn’t resist his brother’s question.

 

“Dad, hurt me,” Klaus whispered.

 

Ben didn’t pause for a moment before scooting up on the bed so he could lay down beside Klaus and wrap around him. “What happened? Are you okay?” He asked in a rush.

 

“I didn’t want to talk to the monsters,” Klaus confided, rolling over to face his brother, “dad said I needed to stop being afraid of them, he said that if I didn’t talk to them,” he paused, his throat too tight to speak more.

 

Ben knew all about the monsters Klaus was so afraid of, nearly every night Ben had experienced firsthand the nightmares that plagued his brother.He would jerk awake, shivering and sweating with fear, Klaus never wanted to talk about those dreams even though Ben always asked him. Klaus would force a smile and spend the rest of night listless and awake. It was only when the sun came up that Klaus could describe the horrors of what he saw and that they never went away, it was just less terrifying in the light of day.

 

Ben swallowed thickly, “what did he do?” He asked fearfully.

 

“He h. .hurt me. He hit me with his stick so many times, it hurt so much, I . . I have never felt something so painful.” Klaus confided covering his face with his hands.

 

Ben pulled him close and hugged him tight. They had been nearly the same height, but a recent growth spirt had given Ben a bit of an advantage making Klaus seem abnormally small and boney in his arms.

 

Ben felt a wave of cold wash over him and settle in his stomach. Their father had hurt Klaus, ‘his’ Klaus.

 

“We’ll run away! We’ll run away and go to California or, or Hawaii, we can live on the beach, it’s warm all year and we can catch fish to eat . . .” Ben said excitedly.

 

Klaus wiped his eyes, “Really? You and me?” He sniffled. “what about the others, we can’t just leave them.”

 

“Well, they can come too, we’ll all go.” Ben tried to comfort though he didn’t know how that would work, he was just trying to take the misery out of Klaus’ eyes.

 

Klaus knew they were only dreaming, their father had found them all the first time, he knew that they’d be found again but he soaked up the comfort and enjoyed thinking about he and Ben living on a beach like he’d seen in books and postcards.

 

“Maybe we can go to Asia so we can see where you are from,” Klaus suggested, weakly.

 

“Or Germany, where you were born,” Ben added. “ We can go wherever you want Klaus, you pick.”

 

Even though he knew they were imagining, it made Klaus feel so much better to think about leaving and never coming back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally continued this after taking forever! I can’t Promise speed, but if you like this story, let me know and I will write more, not sure if it’s everyone’s cup of tea.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment if you want more, I’ve only written this chapter so far. I’ll continue it if there’s enough interest.


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